Other Opinion: A bigger, better land of the free, home of the brave

Well, it's been a week now. A week since our world showed us again how small it is.

What were once distant rumbles in remote lands are now shock waves rocketing across us like cannon balls in a bathtub.

We are awash in feelings.

I understand them. Anger. Anguish. Vengeance. Grief. Pride.

Vulnerability.

Impotence.

We are in whatever stage of grief follows massive and senseless carnage. There may be no recognized sociological tag for it, but nuclear weapons are somehow central to our thoughts.

We want to kick somebody's butt.

You know, eight days ago, I could have gotten a pretty good laugh by telling you about some of the denizens of the Big Apple to whom I am related. My uncle who drove for the mob. The nice sweaters I received at Christmas boosted from docks in the Port Authority. Crazy uncles and zany aunts.

And you might have been amused because these were New Yorkers who think they're better than everybody when everyone knows it's Texans.

Then last week we became countrymen again, a common people who, if not of common blood, are at least of common destiny.

Since we are all free to leave this country, I guess the ones who are still here are still here because they want to be. So maybe we should take notice of our neighbors' demise. Maybe someone as strange as a New Yorker is to a Texan can die in horror and still touch our concern. These were Americans who died, and we are of them.

I love to hear these guys in their 80s talking about going over and kicking the butts of upstart countries who are clearly responsible.

I picture these guys in a plane with their wives and grandchildren facing two or more fanatics with assault rifles and explosives, and quaking in terror at the thought of kicking their backsides.

Why news organizations consider these guys quotable defies me.

We are seeing a picture for which we are unprepared.

The enemy here may well be an independent, a wealthy man who terrorizes us because he can afford to. It is not a country we can invade or whose capital we can bomb, it is a single man and his associates who may be anywhere at all - even right here.

How do we apprehend such a man? And how do we do it so we still feel afterward that he didn't destroy what made us worth destroying?

We have a number of responses available to us. One is to go after whomever is responsible hammer and tongs. Now, that has a certain appeal to all of us who grew up watching James Bond grapple with Blofeld. Maybe if we just gave Tom Selleck an Aston Martin and a Berretta . . .

Or if it is a country, we can whistle up some B-52s. Or B-1s if we feel really frisky. Or B-2s if we want to send a message. Bomb their offices and their palaces and their factories and show them how much we want peace.

One of the things I hate most about our politicians is how they try to hog air time by overstating their positions.

It isn't enough that this is a tragedy, that we intend to hunt down and deal remorselessly with the perpetrators.

We have to suffer some politician speaking from complete safety as he jumps all gaps to tell us how this could be our finest hour.

What I would prefer to hear is a politician say something like this: This is a tragedy. This is also an outrage. We as a civilized people do not take to bullying. But we are an honest people, just, virtuous and strong. So here is how we intend to respond.

We will rebuild the World Trade Center. We will remake both towers, and they will be identical to what you destroyed.

To the best of our ability, we will make these two buildings as much like their antecedents as it is possible to make them, and where we cannot make them the same, we will make them better.

We also will defend them.

We will remake the Pentagon. This building is the dowager of our government, and she has been needing a serious rebuild for a long time.

This is our chance. We will take 10 percent of our Star Wars military budget and apply it instead to rebuilding the Pentagon.

The only thing that will still be the same when we're done is the address, and the new building will be worthy of the new millennium.

Finally, we will study what you have done here. We will study it both from the standpoint of how you did what you did, and therefore what you are likely to do next time, and also from the standpoint of how we responded, and therefore what you might be tempted to try.

We will study these things and prepare for these things, and if we haven't found you by then, we will offer this challenge to you: Go ahead. Assault our other cheek.

Greg Sagan can be contacted in care of the Amarillo Globe-News, P.O. Box 2091, Amarillo, Texas 79166, or letters@amarillonet.com.